Sunday, October 5, 2014

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: July 23, 1861

Yesterday was the saddest day this country has ever experienced. In the morning the papers said that we had gained a great victory at Bull's Run, taken three batteries and were pushing on to Manassas Junction. We found afterwards that these accounts were exaggerated, and that the action at Bull's Run was merely the beginning of a battle, which appeared to be favorable to the Federal forces. About half past three, Anna and Mother had gone to drive and I was sitting in Mother's room, when Nellie came up crying, and said, “Our whole army has been cut to pieces and entirely routed.” “Which army?” I asked. I immediately thought that we had been driven from Virginia and the three divisions of our army completely destroyed. I went down to ask Anna, but she could tell nothing excepting that our men had run from the enemy and lost everything. In a few moments Father, George and Mother (who had met them and walked back with them) came in and we all sat on the piazza in a most unhappy state of mind. The report was that a panic had taken possession of our army as they were attacking the batteries at Manassas Junction and they had all run, with no regard to anything else but saving their own lives. Our loss was said to be about three thousand and that of the enemy very severe also. Father had brought down a letter from Rob, saying they (Patterson's Column) were about to march somewhere from Charlestown, but we have heard this morning that Patterson was expected to make a junction with McDowell and would have saved the day had he done so. As we sat all together on the piazza feeling very miserable, George didn't enliven us much by saying, “The next thing they will do will be to march on Washington, take possession of it, and then Jeff Davis will issue his conditions from the Capitol and offer us peace.” After talking it over we all felt better and prepared to hear that it wasn't quite so bad as the reports said.

In the evening Mr. Appleton (a neighbor) came in to George's and told us that Patterson's forces were supposed to be engaged at Manassas. We didn't tell Mother, although we all knew it, for it would have caused her useless anxiety. Lou Schuyler (who is staying here with her sister) heard of the report on the boat but didn't speak of it. In the evening Sam Curtis and I went to Mrs. Oakey's and Mr. Oakey demonstrated in a very scientific manner that this couldn't possibly be true. In spite of his cheering remarks, we all felt very badly and merely hoped we might hear better news in the morning. Our hopes proved true, although even today the news is so humiliating that we feel as if we couldn't trust our own men again. They ran with no one pursuing! The enemy didn't even know such a direful rout had occurred. In their reports they say only that they have gained the battle, but with fearful loss on both sides. It was evidently the battle on which everything depended for them. Their four best generals, Beauregard, Johnston, Davis and Lee, were there with ninety thousand men, while our force was only twenty-five thousand. I can conceive what must be the feelings of the men under Patterson; they might have turned the fortune of the battle and were doing nothing! Poor fellows! Our men ran as far as Fairfax Court House and the Rebels took possession of the territory as we left it. McClellan is called from Western Virginia and we shall have to retake by slow degrees what we have lost in one day. This morning our loss was said to be only five hundred, but what are we to believe?

This afternoon all the most humiliating circumstances of our defeat proved to be false. Our men behaved with the greatest courage and bravery, charging and carrying the batteries and fighting with as much intrepidity as the most veteran troops could display, until the force of the enemy became overpowering by the junction of Johnston with Beauregard. Then, and not until then, they retreated in good order. Mr. Russell, of the London Times, is said to have said that nowhere in the Crimean War had he seen men make such splendid charges. This morning I and the Oakeys went down to the sewing meeting and worked hard until three o'clock, when we came home and heard the joyful tidings that our men were not cowards. The false reports were from the exaggerated statements of civilians who had witnessed the battle and been very much frightened themselves, and all the agony of yesterday was occasioned by the readiness of newspaper reporters to transmit any stirring news to their employers.

One little incident showed the difference of feeling between today and yesterday. A few days ago Mother bought Frank a uniform and George had promised to buy him a knapsack yesterday, but when he came down from town he said to Frank: “My dear little boy, you must forgive me this time for when I got to New York, I heard such terrible news that I had no heart to buy your knapsack.” This afternoon Frank came over in great glee, with knapsack and fez.

I know a great many men in the army who are: My brother, and first cousin, H. S. Russell, in Gordon's Regiment (2d Mass. Vol.), Capt. Curtis, Lieut. Motley, Lieut. Morse, Capt. Tucker, Lieut. Bangs, Lieut. Robson in the same Regiment; Joe and Ned Curtis, the former belonging to the Ninth Regiment, N. Y., the latter, a surgeon in the Georgetown Hospital. My cousin, Harry Sturgis, in Raymond Lee's Mass. Regiment. My uncle, William Greene, Colonel of the 14th Mass.; Dr. Elliott and his three sons of the Highland Regiment; Capt. Lowell of the U. S. A., and Theodore Winthrop, who died for his country at Great Bethel, June 10th, 1861. Also, Rufus Delafield, a surgeon U. S. A. Twenty brave men, — nineteen living and one dead. — O. Wendell Holmes, Caspar Crowninshield.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 10-13

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